India cases hit 2 months high
India reported the biggest single-day rise in Covid-19 cases in two months yesterday, as the government worries about the virus spreading from the most-affected Kerala state, schools reopening, and the start of the festival season.
Densely populated Kerala, on India's southern tip, accounted for nearly 70% of the 47,092 new infections and a third of deaths, a week after it celebrated its biggest festival during which family and social gatherings were common.
"With cases rising in Kerala, adequate steps should be taken to contain the inter-state spread of Covid-19," Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a statement after speaking with his state counterparts in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which border Kerala.
As more than two-thirds of Indians already have Covid-fighting antibodies, mainly through natural infection, experts think another national surge in cases will be less deadly than the last one in April and May when tens of thousands of people died and hospitals ran out of beds and oxygen.
The federal government, nevertheless, has warned that like in Kerala, the rest of India could also see a rise in infections around the festival season starting this month and ending in early November, reports Reuters.
Meanwhile, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said Wednesday that fully vaccinated people do not urgently need booster jabs against Covid-19, but an extra dose for people with depressed immune systems should be considered. Scientific data had not proved the need for a booster, the World WHO said on August 18.
WHO on Wednesday launched a global data hub in Berlin to analyse information on emerging pandemic threats, filling the gaps exposed by Covid-19. The data hub is set to bring together experts from various disciplines in Berlin to analyse data quickly in order to predict, prevent, detect, prepare for and respond to risks worldwide, reports AFP.
North Korea has rejected around three million doses of a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine, suggesting they should be given to countries in greater need, Unicef said yesterday.
Pyongyang insists it has yet to see any cases of the virus -- a claim that analysts doubt -- but it has paid a huge economic price for the blockade, with the regime admitting in June it was tackling a "food crisis".